


Fixer Upper

by IrisParry



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Haunted House, M/M, Modern AU, real estate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-01-25 13:11:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12532196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisParry/pseuds/IrisParry
Summary: When Armitage Hux starts with First Order estate agents, he thinks the house on Alderaan Drive is an insult, a patronising set of training wheels for the new boy. He is ... not correct.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve had this idea knocking around for ages, inspired by this tumblr post that always makes me cackle. With Halloween coming up and The Last Jedi on the horizon, about to throw all our WIPs and headcanons into disarray, it felt like now or never.
> 
> Update maybe once every couple of days?? I’ve got the whole thing mapped out and a couple more chapters written, but I’ve not done a drip feed chaptered fic before so let’s see how I get on. Hold my hand. Hope you like it.

In the dying evening sun, the house looked even lovelier than the photographs. Deepening shadows picked out the subtle stonework tracery, and the light glowed through the colours of the stained glass - simple, monochrome panels at the top of the windows, enough to add character but not so much as to be off-putting. It was the balance of the house that made it so appealing, to Hux’s eye, the Gothic revival stylings alongside the clear indications that someone had lived a modern life in the building, had gently softened its edges. The lawyer managing the estate had not been able to tell him much about the house’s history, regrettably enough, but had confirmed it was not listed. Odd, but that made for a much easier sell, no restrictions on remodelling.

Standing in the driveway, petals from the grand magnolia tree drifting to settle on the roof of his car, Hux found it hard to imagine anyone would _want_ to remodel, but years in real estate had revealed unspeakable things to him about the tastes of his fellow man. He imagined passing the house in a few months time only to find the glossy, deep red front door stripped down and painted _teal_ , every beautiful pointed arch ripped out for something blocky and minimalist in white oak. He shuddered. His new employers would hopefully attract a better clientele.

Hux had to wonder about the firm’s opinion of him, however. His references were impeccable, his sterling record frankly superior to First Order’s highest achievers, and yet here he was getting started with this dream property that even their drippy intern could have sold in a fortnight. Particularly as the asking price was somewhat lower than he’d expected. He hadn’t been able to find a reason for that: no structural problems turned up in the surveys, no damp, no woodworm (unlike a lot of older houses with this much interior panelling), no Japanese knotweed waiting to devour the place from beneath. There was a Japanese _maple_ in the back yard, stunning sunset foliage making the place seem warm and inviting, sophisticated but not too quirky to settle into and make one’s own.

Someone had loved this house, and put a lot of thought into its appearance. Hux wondered what had happened to them, but did not dwell on that for long. He would be on to more challenging work soon enough. The couple had been so excited by the portfolio that they almost bought the place unseen, and the viewing was scheduled for 10:00am the following day. All that was left to Hux was to spruce the place up a bit before then, add the little finishing touches that made a prospective buyer walk in and feel right at home.

Setting his cleaning supplies at the top of the short flight of stone steps leading to the front door, Hux went back to his car and got the bouquet of lilies from the back seat. They’d go on the little table in the hall, greeting the eye with elegance as soon as the door opened. A simple trick, but predictably effective.

As Hux fiddled with the bunch of keys a breeze picked up, sudden and chill, rustling through the magnolias, tugging at the lilies wedged in the crook of his arm. Gripping them tighter, Hux opened the smart red door.

The hinges let out a tortured creak. Nothing a little WD-40 wouldn’t fix.

  
*

Hux slammed the door so hard the windowpanes rattled and the heavy brass knocker thumped. The hinges screamed.

“What the fuck?!” He stamped back into the hall, the rug squelching beneath his feet. In the distance the viewers’ car tore out of the driveway with a squeal of brakes.

That made an even dozen failed sales.

“I mean - ” he stuttered, incoherent with rage. “I mean, what the _fuck_ is this?”

The lights flickered, and Hux stamped his foot. Red splashed up onto the leg of his trousers.

“That is not an answer! I thought we were past this nonsense!” The lights dimmed with a low warning buzz. “Oh yes, _nonsense_! Walls weeping blood?! Childish, straight-to-video nonsense!”

A fizz and a pop and Hux was standing in the dark, hands on his hips, feeling the rage flush his cheeks. “Fine!” he yelled, waving a finger. “Fine! You’re just proving my point!”

Slow dripping echoed in the answering silence, irregular and mocking. Hux took a deep breath.

“Do you have any idea,” he said, through gritted teeth, “how long it is going to take to get this out of the wood grain?” The living room door creaked gently, and Hux took it as a yes. “Bastard,” he muttered, and the door swung firmly, sulkily shut.

There was nothing to be done in the dark, and if he stayed to try to clean up now he might end up taking a sledgehammer to the walls instead. Hux turned to leave.

At the door he stopped short, anger churning in his belly again. “And what is your problem with the bloody lilies?” he called. A final dry, shrivelled petal fell to the floor as he watched.

  
Hux was still seething later that evening, sitting on his bed with his back against the wall, eating dinner. The house on Alderaan Drive had not, in fact, been a set of patronising training wheels for the new boy. It was hazing, Hux thought, stabbing his noodles viciously.

He’d die before he discussed it with any of them, but he’d checked the records and every single agent had been assigned to the place at one point over the past 3 years, and every one of them had given up. There was no official record of why, but Hux could guess at the reasons well enough by now: strange noises, inexplicable icy winds, constant electrical problems; breaking mirrors, floating objects, infestations of insects that vanished as soon as they appeared; blurry apparitions, blood, and of course the infernal howling and wailing.

Hux was dimly aware that this sort of thing was probably intended as a bonding experience, an initiation into the office joke. Everyone went through the same humiliation, everyone admitted defeat, and then their colleagues clapped them on the back and shared horror stories to commiserate. Hux had no interest in making friends with failures, and certainly not on the basis that he was the same as them. His colleagues had stopped approaching his desk with their shitty coffee and knowing smiles, asking him how it was going with Alderaan Drive, was he having any, er, _problems_ , obviously disappointed with his serious answers about upcoming viewings and the selling power of charming period features.

As if he was going to break down in front of them, he thought, chewing bitterly, as if they were going to get the spectacle they craved. _Oh, I’m so glad you asked, Mitaka, you’re going to think I’m quite mad but… is it normal for properties in this area to scream at you to get out while you try to air out the attic? What about plagues of locusts? No? Whatever shall I do?!_

Hux snorted and got up to sling his noodle cup in the bin, his fork in the sink. He would not give them the satisfaction. He would not give the damned _house_ the satisfaction.

Armitage Hux would sell that house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux rolls up his sleeves, in more ways than one.

Hux spent the next day scrubbing and mopping and sweating while the house breathed down his neck. The address was blacklisted by several professional cleaning firms, he had discovered, and he would rather have avoided the humiliating paper trail that would result from charging the service to the company anyway. 

The work was quite invigorating, though. Hux was not afraid to get his hands dirty, and there was something defiantly thrilling about it, about proving himself undeterred. When he interviewed for First Order he made it clear he would always go the extra mile if they gave him the freedom. So the blasted house had show furniture he personally selected, his overtime spreadsheet was always signed off, and he had learned a great deal about the cleansing properties of bicarbonate of soda and white vinegar. He would not, would _not_ , allow himself to be distracted by any useless emotional response to the problem at hand. This was all simply a challenge to be overcome. Kneeling on the stairs in Marigolds and overalls, sleeves rolled up with the precision of his weekday shirts, Hux gritted his teeth and scrubbed, and knew he was going to  _ win _ . 

The house graciously allowed him to clean up its mess, relatively unmolested. There had been a tantrum when he arrived in the morning, of course, typical of the bloody place in the days after a disastrous viewing, as if whatever insufferable force haunted the house had also spent the night stewing in rage. Hux had learned to go to the tranquil place in his mind, to focus on the task in front of him and his eventual success in it, not on the fact that he was being howled at by an actual ghost inside an actual haunted house and that everything he had experienced inside 12 Alderaan Drive ought to be impossible. 

Hux felt watched, even after the house had tired itself out. An unsettling staticky feeling lingered in the air, crept over his skin and set the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck standing on end. Floorboards creaked softly close to wherever he worked, as if a nervous cat were treading lightly upon them, not daring to put down its full weight. It felt… curious. Hux half imagined he was about to hear the clearing of a throat, feel a hand on his shoulder. More than once he felt compelled to go outside and smoke a cigarette for his nerves, cursing himself all the while. 

As the day went on both he and the house settled somewhat. He wondered if perhaps it liked the attention, liked having Hux slave away over it. When he got the wood polish out the living room door creaked open almost cheerfully, stopping in its path before the knob could smack into the wall and crack the paint again. Hux was surprised at that, then grateful, then terribly angry with himself for being grateful to a sodding poltergeist who really had no right to be loitering around causing trouble. 

Hux packed up mid-afternoon, weary but still determined, with time to go home and shower before returning to meet the viewers. At the door he stopped to adjust the peonies, pale pink blooms in the vase on the little table. Hux liked them. They were elegant and attractive, but with a homely softness to their appearance, and, importantly, they were not lillies. The staticky feeling intensified for a moment and Hux caught his breath, waited.

The peonies wilted and shrivelled before his eyes. Hux slammed the door on the way out.

The viewers did not wish to buy the house, undoubtedly deterred by the almighty stench that rose as they walked around. By the time Hux suggested looking upstairs, voice mildly hysterical, their eyes were watering and they had started to make polite noises about other plans they were late for. 

Hux showed them out with a fixed smile and sagged against the door as he closed it, slapping his hand over his mouth and nose.

“Well done, well done,” he called through his fingers. “If I hadn’t had the surveys done for  _ just this reason _ , I would think you were rotting inside the walls somewhere, you utter bastard.”

A chill descended. The heavy sense of  _ presence _ abruptly vanished, and Hux was left with the distinct impression that he had offended the house. Not sent it into a rage, as he seemed to be adept at, but … hurt its feelings? It stood to reason that decaying corpses would be a sensitive subject, he supposed.

Driving home, window open to get some fresh air back into his lungs, Hux considered his tactics. He thought about the changing atmosphere in the house as he cleaned, and had to acknowledge that a bad smell was a fairly tame response to prospective buyers, given what he knew the house to be capable of. It occurred to him that, for all the dreadful racket and mess, none of it had ever caused serious or permanent damage. There’d been nothing structural. Perhaps there was method to the madness, an underlying logic, besides a hatred for hard-working estate agents. From what little he understood of such matters, a … spirit … usually had a connection to the location it lingered in. He thought of the charm of the house, the years of life and care evident in its style and fittings. This was home, still, to someone. Someone who may be overprotective rather than simply mischievous.

Hux grinned, his grip tightening on the wheel. A new angle. He could work with that.

 

*

 

Hux stood in the hallway and cleared his throat. 

“Good morning,” he said, through gritted teeth. It was difficult to shed the irritation from his voice entirely when alone with the house, but he had a plan. He had to stick to it. He took a deep breath and tried again. “Good morning.” Better.

There was silence in reply, but at this stage Hux found simple rudeness almost a relief. 

He ploughed on. “I will be bringing two people for a viewing today,” he said, looking around for any indication of a response. “A young couple in their twenties, both in gainful employment.” Silence. “I have spoken to both of them on the telephone, and met with them at my office - “ Hux swore he heard a soft creak somewhere, then a skittering sound, as if this had piqued some interest. “- and I consider them to be decent, upstanding people.”

Upstanding, and fairly annoying, he did not add out loud. Obviously ridiculously in love with one another, and with the whole of their sickly-sweet lives together ahead of them. They made him feel very old and very bitter, but the point was that they would likely fill a house with sunshine and laughter and fat, happy babies, and that seemed to be the sort of thing most people approved of.

“I take pride in my work,” he told the silence, drawing himself up a little taller. “And I would not show a client a property unless I thought they could be a good fit.” The hall light briefly flickered on, then off again. Hux had someone’s attention, then. “I would appreciate your giving them a chance.” ‘I’ statements. Assertive, but not demanding. Less satisfying than bellowing insults but hopefully more likely to secure co-operation. Now to force out the cherry on top. He dug his nails into his palm, clenched fist hidden in his pocket. “Thank you.”

That afternoon, Hux waved the couple off at the end of the drive. He’d hustled them past the dying dahlias, distracted them with the view across the woods when the bloody green slime (he absolutely refused to think of it as _ectoplasm_ ) started bubbling up through the master bedroom’s floorboards again, and passed off the low, menacing growling noise that followed them through the house as the wind in the eaves, period charm. They loved the place, and were going to take some time to think about things before moving forward. The were young and faced a big commitment, so they were cautious: Hux was cautiously optimistic.

There was one more opinion to take into consideration, however. Hux turned back to the house, apprehension fluttering in his belly.

“Well,” he said brightly, hopefully, back in the hall. “Don’t they seem nice?”

At the top of the stairs, a door slammed shut. The second bedroom, likely to have been home to a moody teenager when - if - this place had been a family home. Fitting. Hux sighed. 

“Oh, come on,” he wheedled. “Did you hear her say the parlour would make a perfect workout room? It’d be very exciting.”

To his left, black mould bloomed on the painted wall, crawling into the shape of letters. Hux braced himself, hands on hips, patience quickly evaporating. The damned stuff wiped off easily enough, but never said anything remotely mature or constructive.

“That’s very offensive,” he snapped as the words resolved themselves, the hand spidery and uneven. “But thank you so much for this message from the beyond. What an insight into the mysteries of the afterlife.”

The lightbulb above him fizzed and popped, showering him with shards of fine glass, then the whole house went dark. 

"And that word has two L's!" Hux called into the shadows.  
  


 

*

 

“Good evening, this is Armitage from First Order. Yes, it is a little late, I do apologise.” Perched on the edge of his bed, work mobile pressed to his ear, Hux forced a short laugh. “Can you speak? Good. I’m afraid I have some bad news about Alderaan Drive.”

Rey and her husband were very nice people, and Hux felt vaguely guilty about how obviously dismayed they were to hear the news. Particularly as it wasn’t true. Sweeping up the glass, though, driving home, pacing his studio, a different guilt had nagged at Hux. 

He could not, in good conscience, let sweet, innocent young people attempt to raise babies in that devil house. Things were calmer today, yes, but how long would it be before the screaming in the night, the phantom rats scrabbling in the walls, the blood pouring down the stairs again? He would not be able to shake the guilt, a very reasonable amount of it... but also, the knowledge that he had not solved the problem. Today he papered over the cracks, that was all, and that was not good enough. It was beneath him. 

Hux made something up about a new surveyor’s report, damp, structural problems,  _ expensive _ problems. Rey and Finn had a very strict budget and, he knew, could not afford to take on those kinds of repairs, even with Alderaan Drive's already reduced asking price. They were disappointed, but he had other properties they could take a look at, others that had plenty to recommend them. He would find them a good home that didn’t write rude things about people in mould on its own walls. 

Hux hung up with a three-viewing tour of a nice little neighbourhood lined up for them in a couple of days’ time. He took off his shoes and padded across to the kitchenette to put the kettle on.

It  _ was _ a better day today, he thought, opening the milk and giving it a sniff (still good). There was definite progress. The house had responded to his efforts, with the first viewing that didn’t involve anything potentially emotionally scarring for his clients. 

A significant part of the business, of how Hux approached it at least, was psychology. Reading people, knowing what a potential buyer said they wanted and what they actually wanted; using little touches and tricks that will help them warm to a place, distract them from their minor quibbles and help them make decisions in their best interests. 

What he needed was to turn those skills on the house itself. He needed to try to understand it. To work out what the hell it wanted. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mould idea came from a conversation with @badspacebabies <3


	3. Chapter 3

Hux arrived at 12 Alderaan Drive bright and early on Monday morning, the package under his arm and a bunch of flowers in his hand. They were peculiar flowers - technically still lilies, but he banked on the house not being terribly knowledgeable about such things. Clusters of red-orange blossoms glowed at the top of long stems, and had caught his eye near the till at the florist. The assistant, whose assumption that his frequent custom was down to his devotion as a husband he had never bothered to correct, informed him they were known as red-hot pokers. They were worth a try, and the oblique reference to some dreadful medieval torture seemed appropriate to his relationship with the recipient. 

Hux left the package on the side in the kitchen while he filled the vase with fresh water and trimmed the flowers’ stems. They didn’t need much arranging, the five blooms looking striking just as they were, fitting the house’s subtle blend of the traditional and the modern. The vase was his own, simple thick glass with a pale green colouring to it. It went with everything. 

It began to feel unusually stuffy as he went back to the kitchen so he took off his jacket, decided to open a couple of windows to air the place out, just while he was there. When he thought about going back to the car for dusters and the Pledge, however, he realised he was stalling. He was there with a purpose, and ought to be getting on with it. No matter how ridiculous it was.

Hux sat down cross-legged on the rug in the living room, and steeled himself. He opened the parcel, tossed the ludicrous inner packaging aside, and briefly questioned his own sanity again. The board was made of wood and bore the least fanciful design he had been able to find - the letters of the alphabet, numbers 0 - 9, the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’, and, for no apparent purpose save some notion of a mystical aesthetic, old-fashioned drawings of the sun and moon in the top corners. The heart-shaped planchette ran smoothly on its little wheels when Hux gave it an experimental push. 

A ouija board. It had arrived from Amazon on Saturday. No power on this earth, and certainly not any in this house, could have made him set foot in some patchouli-scented charlatan’s den to make the purchase in person. Of course, Hux ordinarily considered this sort of thing utter nonsense, with any phenomenon outside cynical manipulation of the vulnerable having been well explained by science. Inside 12 Alderaan Drive, however, he could probably rule out the ideomotor effect. The house had proven its familiarity with the English language, but never outside moments of screeching rage or just plain sulking. Hux wanted to communicate outside these emotional outbursts, and the board allowed him to set the parameters for the exchange, to finally take the lead.

Taking the lead. That’s what he was doing. Thinking outside the box. Being solution-focussed. He had absolutely no reason to feel like such an idiot. Hux put his fingers on the planchette. This was the point where he should probably do some deep breathing or chanting, open his third eye or something, he supposed. 

It wasn’t necessary, however, because that prickling sense of presence was there already, the sort of watchful suspense in which he’d cleaned up the house a few days ago. It had crept up on Hux while he busied himself with the flowers and the board, and now he couldn’t pinpoint when he’d really become aware of it.  _ Is there anybody there _ , people always asked ouija boards on television. There’s always someone here, Hux thought. It was just a question of them choosing to show themselves, and how.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, remembered his manners. The house seemed to have liked them. 

“Good morning,” he said. “I thought we might have a conversation.” Silence, but it felt ... heavy. “I thought this might, er, assist matters.” 

Hux looked around the room, though he didn’t know what he expected to see. Some sort of sign, some reciprocation. The house still felt uncommonly warm, even with the windows opened, but there was nothing else out of the ordinary.

“The idea is,” Hux began, reasoning that the house’s occupant might have passed away before ouija boards became a staple of popular culture and therefore might not be familiar with the concept, “The idea is that I ask questions, seek your opinions, that sort of thing.” There was no sense in making it sound like an interrogation. “Then you can move this over the board to spell out replies, see?” He rolled the planchette over a couple of random letters to demonstrate. When he stopped moving it, it did not move again.

“There’s ‘yes’ and ‘no’ already written out, for simplicity,” Hux ploughed on. “And numbers, though I can’t imagine why we’d need them. Unless you have a telephone you’d rather be contacted on.” 

There was a soft creak behind Hux and he started a little, his fingers twitching on the planchette. He cursed himself. He would not turn around, he would not. They would use the board like civilised entities. Hux was in charge, and they would use the damned board. 

That was more like it, though. The creeping, catlike noises, what he’d come to think of as signs he had someone’s interest, rather than just their anger. 

“I don’t know that I even have to have to touch the planchette in these circumstances,” Hux continued, filling the silence. “I mean, it’s not like I need to push it myself to con anyone. It’s not like I need to fake a haunting.”

Nothing.

“I’m sure you could move it by yourself. You tipped that table over like it was made of cardboard when the Wexleys were here.”

Hux was babbling, feeling his face getting redder and redder as the house declined to put him out of his misery. Absurdly, it occurred to him that the house was warm because  _ it _ was embarrassed. Perhaps it had grown a conscience, and felt terrible about everything it had put him through. He doubted asking about that would get him much further.

There could be something to it, he supposed. Some sort of social awkwardness, nerves at the prospect of communicating like a grown-up with someone who wasn’t yelling in rage or running screaming. Aside from Hux introducing Rey and Finn, how long might it have been since the spirit or whatever had been addressed in a civilised fashion? Hux’s curiosity had the edge over his annoyance for the moment. It was strange to think of it as  _ shy _ , considering the decidedly extroverted tendencies otherwise demonstrated. Did it socialise with other ghosts? Was this a terribly haunted neighbourhood? Was there some sort of spectral social club it could spend the evening in, or was it tied to the house?

Hux sighed. All he was getting out of this was more questions, and he really ought to get into the office. This wasn’t the only place on his books, after all. 

“Alright,” Hux said. “Not feeling like talking today. I understand.” He did pause for just a moment before taking his fingers off the planchette, in case the spirit was about to jump in and spell out  _ W-A-I-T _ . It did not. “I’m afraid I have other commitments today.” He stood looking carefully around the room. He felt like he was hearing something at the very edges of his senses, a vibration in the air that he could strain toward and decipher if he knew how. If he could learn how. 

“But,” he continued, trying to make it sound more a promise than a threat, “I will be back. I will try again.”

Hux packed up the board and made his way to the front door, closing the windows as he went. The house remained quite warm, but now it struck him differently. It was almost comfortable: like the house was still … alive, full of energy, but not agitated. Nothing had happened. Hux had sat and made a fool out of himself for ten minutes, and he ought to be frustrated. Instead he felt oddly encouraged. Hopeful. It was nice not to be met with out-and-out hostility, he supposed. Perhaps the house felt the same.

The red-hot pokers were just as he left them in the vase, not shrivelled up or blackened, all the fiery blooms in place. If anything they looked brighter, perkier. Interesting. 

“You like those, then?” Hux asked, turning to back to the hall. Talking to an empty hallway after a session on the oujia board. He hoped to hell the rest of the office hadn’t planted hidden cameras.

Hux received no response, but the flowers remained whole and fresh. He counted it as a win. 

 

*  
  


Hux returned the following afternoon, though with no time to get out the ouija board hidden in the boot of his car. He had a viewing arranged, in place before his decision about investigating the house’s current resident, and had given serious consideration to cancelling. This particular client, however, was one who had been very taken with the property and who he was not inclined to disappoint. It couldn’t hurt to at least show the place, help build up a good working relationship, pull the structural survey card again if he needed to. He smoothed back his hair as he walked around the house, checking for anything out of place, doing a spot of last-minute tidying. 

The flowers were still alive, and the fact put a bit more of a spring into his step. He had surely imagined the front door opening so smoothly and quietly on its hinges, as if being held in welcome. Late afternoon sunlight poured in through the windows, the wood gleamed, and the trees were resplendent in their autumn colours outside. The house had always been casually elegant, but today he could see how it might be homely too.

On the landing, however, Hux froze: dark shapes were forming on the wall next to him, black mould creeping across the wallpaper. Hux gritted his teeth, biting back a curse. It had all been too good to be true. The bloody place had just been toying with him, lulling him into a false sense of security. He never should have trusted - 

Hux blinked as the words resolved themselves, slowly and shakily. Some of the letters wavered as he read them a second time, their edges erasing and redrawing themselves, the message itself unchanging.

“Um,” Hux said, swallowing, glancing around into the patches of sun and the shadows beyond. “Thanks?” Everything in the message was spelled correctly. There was no mistaking it. “It’s a new shirt?” 

The letters shrank and vanished, whipped away as if in embarrassment. Hux stood stock still for a moment, then before he could think about it he put his hand out to the wall, flattening his palm. The surface was cool and smooth, disappointingly ordinary. He thought he felt the tips of his fingers tingle, ever so slightly.

Hux was suddenly very conscious of his pulse in his neck, and of sweat starting to prickle beneath his arms. Not for the first time, he felt very strongly that if he turned around he would find himself very definitely not alone.

Strange, he thought as he counted his breaths, that he should only feel this in quiet moments in the house. That the presence should only feel so real, so immediate, when it seemed to do nothing but … watch. Look at him. He could not say why this had unsettled him so much more.

There was a creak, and Hux turned around. He was not afraid, not after all he had seen, and the message was surely a sign the house held no truly malicious intent towards him. He turned, toward the presence and the sound; turned into empty space, with no-one waiting. 

Hux sighed. The ouija board really would have been simpler than this.

He smoothed down his shirt front absently as he went down to the hall. The viewing was probably a good idea. The house was in an agreeable mood, clearly, and it would probably like Mr Dameron. Mr Dameron was very likeable, very likeable indeed. Hux brushed off his shoulders and lapels, checked his teeth in the mirror he’d put up to make the hall seem less cramped. 

“Alright then,” he began, folding his hands behind his back to address the house. “Mr Dameron will be here in a few moments to take a look around. He’s a single man around my age, and he’s a  _ pilot _ …” Catching sight of himself in the mirror as he went through the introduction, the house eerily quiet, he noticed his cheeks were unaccountably flushed. Well, was a little brisk outside after all. 

Hux opened the front door at the sound of a car in the driveway, waited on the doorstep while Mr Dameron parked. It was a sports car, quite old but well-kept, white paint job clean but not gleaming - suggesting that Mr Dameron would not be one to neglect a partner, for example, for some absurd daily cleaning routine. That he would be very relaxed about the car enduring some rough and tumble. He was clearly a man who had his priorities right in life. An excellent quality in a client. Excellent.

The car door opened and Hux stood a little straighter. Mr Dameron’s dog bounded out first, keen to lay claim to the magnolia tree. Hux did not generally care for smaller dogs, excitable, yappy little things with monopolies on their owners’ laps, but this one was well trained, a credit to Mr Dameron’s skill and patience. The man himself raised a hand in greeting as he left the car, grinning broadly at Hux. The golden sunlight was far more becoming to him than the fluorescent tubes of Hux’s office, and his step was sprightly, athletic, across the driveway up to the house. 

“Hello,” Hux said, feeling his face reddening again as Mr Dameron shook his hand energetically. It was quite unnecessary physical contact given that they’d met before. Hux had a good feeling about this.   
  


*  
  


Hux stood panting in the hall, the door still ajar, Mr Dameron and his little dog speeding away in the charming old car. 

“ _Bats?_ ” Strands of hair were falling into his face, and he’d thrown his jacket to the floor. “You can make _bats?!_ ” 

This was too much, this was the most ridiculous - Hux was livid, could not keep still, and before he knew it he was striding up the stairs to the landing, pacing before the wall where that stupid, insincere, crawling message had been displayed earlier, his hands fists at his sides. 

“Where did they come from?” he demanded. “Is that species even native? Are they going to survive out there in the bloody winter?” 

The door to the master bedroom banged shut, the sound ringing in Hux’s ears. 

“You don’t know, do you?” he shouted, wheeling around to face the noise. “Typical, thinking of nobody but yourself!” 

He slammed his palm into the wall in frustration. Mr Dameron had laughed about it as he was leaving, but there was no denying the viewing was an absolute disaster. The bats had filled the house in a sudden, frantic swarm, claws and wings scratching at their hair and clothes, accompanied by an unearthly howling that had sent the dog whimpering out into the front yard. Several of the bats had relieved themselves, with Mr Dameron’s handsome leather jacket a popular target. 

“You couldn’t have made mouse-eared bats?” he shouted as he stomped downstairs, shouting for the sake of shouting, not knowing what on earth he was saying. He wanted to scream til he tore up his throat. He wanted kick holes in the infernal house’s panelling. “They’re extinct, you know!” he yelled, kicking at the bottom bannister. “Only one left! I saw a documentary!” 

The living room door swung open violently and Hux jumped at the sound of it clattering back against the wall, plaster crunching and crumbling. He stamped his foot. 

“He was a  _ very nice man _ !” 

A shape hurtled down the stairs toward him and Hux shrieked, ducking and flailing his arms as a final lost bat swooped low, ruffling his hair. He spun around in time to see it vanish through the open door and into the gathering dusk. Childish, childish and irresponsible! 

“Fine!” Hux was sweating and angry and not at all in the mood to shovel up guano, and it would serve the place right to bloody well sit in it until he was good and ready. “Fine! Be like that!”

He yanked the front door fully open and made to leave, but he couldn’t stop himself from leaning back in. “What is your problem?” he shouted, knuckles white on the handle. “Do you honestly enjoy being alone?!”

A short scraping noise was his only warning before there was an almighty crash.

He’d instinctively flinched, raised his hands and crouched a little to protect himself: when he opened his eyes again he saw the vase in pieces, water and shards of glass all over the hall floor. As he watched, the beautiful red-hot pokers, fresh as the moment he’d bought them, withered to black, twisted twigs, crumbling and dead. It ... sort of hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long - work was hell, and then I was knocked sideways by Thor Ragnarok and absolutely had to get some words about that out of my system before I was able to write or think about anything else again, and then work did its thing again, and ugh. I'm aware I'm the worst.
> 
>  
> 
> I’m on tumblr with the same username, and stuff about this fic is tagged “fixerupperfic”.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You could do worse than listening to 'The Greatest' by Cat Power while you read this. I do have a playlist for this fic but I don't generally publish such things so I'm not sure how The Kids are doing it these days, plus I don't want to give anything away. Maybe when it's finished!

It was full dark when Hux pulled into the driveway, and when he turned off his wipers and killed the engine the rain swiftly blotted the house from sight. There were no lights on inside, of course: the house was not exactly unoccupied, but the power was still out. Hux could just about make out the deep red of the front door, in the distant light from the streetlamp and through the cascade of rain on his windscreen.

The last time Hux had visited Alderaan Drive, it was the day after the incident with Mr Dameron. Mr Dameron, who had since bought a ground floor flat on the other side of town. It had a garden more than adequate for the little dog’s enjoyment, many modern amenities within walking distance, a beautiful fireplace he was probably curled up blissfully in front of with a partner, street parking, and no ghost. 

The day after the incident was certainly too soon for either Hux or the house to have cooled off, but as he’d driven home in a fury Hux had begun to worry about the bat shit damaging the floorboards. As much as the bat summoner may have deserved to sit in the mess they’d made, repair or replacement of that flooring would have been difficult and costly, and Hux had no idea how he’d have explained it when requisitioning the funds from First Order. So the next day, after a bit of Googling over breakfast and a stop off at B&Q, he had marched up to the house with Hoover, respirator mask, and a specialist enzyme-based cleaner to add to his expanding range of weird household products. 

Thankfully the droppings came up relatively easily, without any lasting staining or damage, but it was tedious and unpleasant work made much worse by the house’s attitude. It had shorted out the power, and Hux had refused to put it back on before he left. It was an act of pointless spite, he thought now with no little embarrassment, not least because he had no idea if it even inconvenienced the spirit at all. That day Hux felt no catharsis from shouting or stamping his foot in exasperation, and little pride in completing his task. He just felt tired, and humiliated. As he swept up the broken glass, and the twisted remains of the flowers, his phone had buzzed in his pocket and for a moment he had been struck with the thought that it was Mr Dameron, checking up on him after the drama of the night before. Ridiculous, irrational, and obviously incorrect. 

Sending the call from Maratelle to voicemail only added guilt to Hux's thoroughly miserable mix of feelings. He played it back later, lying on his bed, and her voice soothed him momentarily. It had been a long time since he’d made the trip up to see her. Inevitably, though, she got around to a new anecdote about her friends’ grandchildren. She wasn’t one to press the subject but the wistfulness in her tone was unmistakable, and unbearable, and as she passed the phone to his father he hung up and deleted the message. He hadn’t called back yet, though she had. Twice.

Hux’s stomach growled, jolting him out of his thoughts. The brown paper bag in the passenger footwell contained Curry Cottage’s finest offerings, filling the car with delicious smells, and it had been a long time since the lunchtime Cup-A-Soup at his desk. Hux grabbed the bag and got out of the car. He paused for a moment, the door open, rain finding its way inside his collar. Then he snatched the red-hot pokers up from the passenger seat. 

Hux had seen them in the window as he passed the florist that morning and had no idea why he’d stopped to buy them (or the graceful smoky glass vase from the back of the shop), not that it was any of his coworkers’ business. They’d been a nightmare, spending so much of the day on incredibly unprofessional gossip about the flowers in the kitchen (still wrapped, the cut ends in a bowl of water to keep them fresh). Hux had curtly claimed ownership to prevent them being appropriated and put in the window. His remaining at his desk well past closing, rather than darting out eagerly like some lovesick teenager, mercifully stopped the over-familiar questioning about his plans for the evening. 

Hux shielded the flowers and his food from the rain with his jacket as he ran up the steps to the house, then darted back for the vase where it was wedged safely in the footwell. He felt quite nervous, turning the key in the lock after weeks of absence. There was no reason why it was tonight, no reason why the flowers had held his attention today, no plan, no careful decision. Once it became apparent that he was going back, though, once he was carrying the flowers and the vase and his destination that evening had just become a fact, Hux couldn’t deny he felt almost good about it, getting back to the task. Unfinished business was one thing he supposed he had in common with the house’s resident. 

The front door creaked as he pushed it open cautiously. It was a sort of empty sound, though, the sound of hinges in need of WD-40 rather than of otherworldly significance.

“... Hello?”

Hux’s voice echoed softly in the gloom. He tried the hall light switch, wondering if it was something the house would have sorted itself. It was surely capable of flipping a breaker, so it could keep having its fun with the electrics, but had apparently decided not to bother. Hux closed the door quietly, looking around as he made his way to the kitchen, moonlight and streetlight filtering in here and there. The place was cold, and the seething, angry buzz in the air that he associated with power outages was absent. There was no reaction to his presence as he filled the vase, the running water seeming terribly loud, and arranged the flowers as best he could in the low light. 

It was a new kind of unnerving, and Hux began to wonder if he was really, truly alone in the house. 

He sighed, rolling his eyes at himself. There was, perhaps, one way to find out. Lifting his jacket up over his head against the worsening rain, he ran back out to the car and rummaged in the boot for the bloody ouija board. He brought it into the living room with his food, the vase of flowers, and a few tea lights from the kitchen drawer. He had taken to keeping some handy, with matches, for times when the house was being particularly stubborn about keeping the lights on. Hux could have gone down to the cellar, he thought as he lit the candles on top of their coasters, but it would have felt rude, somehow, to turn up and suddenly flood the place in artificial light. He took off his jacket and folded it over the arm of the chair, rolling up his sleeves, then took out the cartons of food and their plastic cutlery, arranging them carefully on top of the paper bag to protect the coffee table from any stray grease. It was really quite silly, but he felt the need to ease the place back into things. It was purely selfish, of course: he’d had a hard day, and did not wish to be screamed at.

Hux found he felt rather awkward about starting to eat. The shadows seemed only deepened by the little lights, though as he peered around the room he saw no life, so to speak, within them. 

“Hello?”

There was still no response, no chill down his spine, no hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He wasn’t sure what he had expected. Perhaps even greater rage for being left alone, punishment for his absence. Swarms of insects that had been saved up for weeks, terrible insults crawling across the walls in that dark, sickly mould.

The thought of those messages did not bring only irritation, however. That one message, on Dameron Day, had been an anomaly that Hux could not fit into the broader pattern of behaviour. It still bothered him. He sighed, scrubbing a hand back over his face. The gesture set strands of hair falling across his forehead, his gel’s hold loosened after several hours of wear. He didn’t know why he’d come here, why he’d let himself be led by a whim in a florist’s window, but the thought of taking his red-hot pokers and lamb biryani back to his flat alone had not entered his head all day. Hux was tired and he was hungry, and he just wanted to know what the house  _ wanted.  _ He wanted to know how to fix things.

Hux pushed the food to the side and opened the ouija board out on the table, perching on the edge of his chair to get close enough. He took a deep breath, to focus, to mark a boundary of sorts; to make it feel like the beginning of something. 

_ Come on, you bastard, _ he thought. He closed his eyes for a second.  _ Please.  _

Hux put his fingers out to the planchette. 

The candle flames flickered, and then a soft voice behind him said, “You don’t need that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on tumblr with the same username, stuff about this fic is tagged "fixerupperfic". Can I finish it before TLJ murders me on Thursday morning?? Who the heck knows.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Can I finish this fic before I see TLJ on Thursday??" I asked in the notes at the end of chapter 4. NOPE, it turns out. BIG NOPE.
> 
> Lookit! lingering-in-space made a [moodboard](https://lingering-in-space.tumblr.com/post/170276008490/someone-had-loved-this-house-and-put-a-lot-of) for this fic! <3

Screaming. Running. Grabbing a weapon. Hux did none of these things, nor did he need to summon great strength of will to keep the urges in check. He sat at the table eating his lamb biryani and felt no horror or fear, not even anger. 

None of his colleagues had experienced this, he was sure. They had all given up. Not Hux. Never Hux. Sitting in the armchair opposite was the reward for Hux’s perseverance, the evidence of his victory, the malevolent spirit who had caused him so much grief. He was a young man with disarmingly soft features, hunching his broad shoulders and letting his long hair shadow his face, and he was watching Hux eat with an expression of mild distaste. 

It was not in Hux’s nature to doubt himself, the evidence of his senses. The buzz of presence that often suffused the house was concentrated now, anchored within the man’s body, and as soon as he spoke Hux had felt it, the recognition humming in his bones. Here, then, was the source of that energy. Hux knew it without question. 

The figure was awkward and apologetic as much as ethereal and wondrous, the way he shifted in the candlelight, the way the image of him rippled and flickered. It put Hux in mind of the hesitant, crawling edges of the mould letters, when they had seemed on the verge of snatching the compliment back. Hux had asked his name and he’d paused for a second, cocked his head as if he were trying hard to remember something long forgotten - or as if he was making something up.

_ Kylo _ , he’d said, so Hux suspected the latter.

Hux had thought many times about meeting the ghost ‘in person’, about having a real figure, a fixed point, someone who would have to  _ listen _ . He’d imagined arguments about the legal property rights of the deceased, which of course he would win. Looking at Kylo, though, all those rehearsed confrontations were forgotten, and Hux was alight with intense, hungry curiosity. He had so many questions - among them why Kylo had not bloody well  _ manifested _ in the first place, instead of letting Hux scream himself hoarse and make an arse of himself with the ouija board. Instead of that unseemly business with the ectoplasm. 

Though, Hux supposed, if Kylo had shown himself straight away it wouldn’t have been the same. There wouldn’t have been this strange, mundane moment, the two of them watching each other out of the corners of their eyes. Kylo running his pale fingers back and forth  _ through _ the flowers, Hux shovelling down his curry before it got cold. Kylo’s hands were like the rest of him, a precarious balance, big but delicate: he turned his wide palms up and down, moved his long fingers in what might have been random patterns or complicated, meaningful gestures, signs. 

Hux had earned this, somehow, but it was hard to know quite what to do with it now, where to start. 

“You, er,” Hux began. Kylo’s dark eyes flicked back to him, and he cleared his throat before carrying on, nodded toward the red-hot pokers. “You like those ones, then?” 

“I hate lilies,” Kylo said, low and even, matter-of-fact. “They remind me of my funeral.” 

“Oh,” Hux paused with a forkful of food halfway to his mouth. “I didn’t think. Sorry.” 

Kylo didn’t respond. It was very like him, Hux was finding out. Kylo would engage as and when he felt like it, in short bursts like a slammed door or a blown lightbulb, declarative and closed yet somehow demanding all the same. And of course he couldn’t simply answer a question. He just kept on posing more, and Hux couldn’t tell whether it was all affectation or a sign of the gulf between them, of some fundamental change once someone … passed over, or whatever was the word for what had happened to Kylo.

Sometimes he had the look of a watercolour, his eyes nothing but deep smudges beneath his brows; but then he would sharpen again and Hux could pick out the moles dotted across his skin, the faint lines at the corners of his wide mouth as if he had once been given to smiling often. He thought of processing capacity, programs on his PC running more slowly when something else was draining the resources. Perhaps Kylo blurred when he was thinking, and his energy was diverted from maintaining his … projection? Kylo’s fingers passed through the flowers, but was that momentary? Was it a choice, for show maybe, or to test his powers? If Hux reached out to him, what would he feel?

All his questions felt different now Kylo was in front of him, real if perhaps not entirely solid. All the thoughts he had ever had about the house, all the strength of feeling, the domination of his thoughts and his time: all of that turned out to be about a man, just a man, rude and odd and almost beautiful, and here Hux was, eating a meal opposite him in candlelight. It was the closest he had come to a date in quite some time, he thought with a snort.

Kylo looked up again, snapping back to his higher resolution, as if he’d been lost in some lofty contemplation. Rather than explain his amusement, Hux pointed his fork at the biryani’s vegetable accompaniment.

“Can you?” It seemed only polite to offer.

“That’s not necessary,” Kylo said cryptically. 

“What do you feel when you you know -” Hux waved his hands in imitation of Kylo’s airy gestures. “The flowers?” He didn’t want to start an interrogation, but he had a hundred experiments running through his mind. He wanted to know how it all worked, to understand the rules. 

Kylo looked at him a moment, drifting in and out of focus, his jaw shifting. “It’s not… like before,” he said eventually. “The same words don’t seem right. You wouldn’t understand.” 

Hux just about kept from rolling his eyes. Fascinating as Kylo’s circumstances were, the mystical vagueness was beginning to trying his patience. 

“Well, maybe you could try the food that way? See if it works?” He shoved the curried vegetables toward Kylo. “I don’t mind.” 

Kylo shuffled forward in his seat, frowning with concentration. It occurred to Hux that the food was new to him, while the flowers were not. He thought of Kylo alone in the house, after Hux’s efforts with the ouija board, fondling the flowers and finding them to his liking. 

Kylo was frowning harder, reaching out to the curry as if it might bite him. He took a pass, in the end, a simple wave of his fingers one way through the container, and back again. There was no discernible effect on the food itself, no indication it had been consumed in any way. Kylo drew away, flopping back into the armchair. He was pouting, and the expression felt so familiar, so fitting, that Hux couldn’t help but smile. 

“It didn’t work?” he asked.

Kylo scowled, or at least he tried to, but then an answering smile flickered onto his face, slight but definitely there in the spread of his mouth and the strange light of his eyes. “I don’t. Didn’t. Didn’t like Indian.”

There was something sort of terrible about his correction of the tense, and about having such petty concerns when he was reaching out miraculously from beyond the grave. Hux dragged the curry back over to his side of the table and dumped a few forkfuls into the biryani container, mixing it in with the remaining rice. Kylo’s nose wrinkled in disapproval. 

“I’ll get some menus and you can pick next time,” Hux said, and he shoved too much food into his mouth, finding himself suddenly embarrassed by how earnest he’d sounded, by how Kylo visibly brightened at his words. He looked clearer and lighter than ever. Of course they would try again, Hux thought, chewing uncomfortably. Of course they would meet again, talk again. They were stuck with one another, really, for the time being.

Stuck, until Hux could work out how to help Kylo … move on? That was what they called it. Kylo was not a dinner companion, and their meetings were simply means to that end. Hux had a mission, and he ought to be focused, precise in his approach. Kylo certainly wasn’t going to be, seeming too distracted by his corporeality to get to the point, to why he’d chosen to manifest in the first place.

Hux thought on that as he finished his food and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. Why now? Hux had expected an almighty tantrum after abandoning the house for so long; he had half expected to get a call telling him the place had burned down out of spite. He looked at Kylo, the lightness of his smile still lingering, his fingers still toying with the flowers or the ghost of the flowers or whatever they were on whatever plane he existed on. He remembered the awkward truce they’d reached before Mr Dameron and the bats and all the unpleasantness, and he wondered.

_ Did you miss me?  _ When Kylo looked up at him again Hux swallowed the thought down, sat up straighter. It was nonsense, immaterial. He had to get to business. 

“So,” he said, “Where in the house did you die?”

Kylo dimmed from view as if someone had stepped between him and the candle flames. In the sudden shadow Hux saw the poltergeist who had summoned blood and horror, saw him unknowable and vicious and everything such a creature ought to be. Hux's heart quickened, muscles tensing with a fight or flight response that seemed woefully late. 

Hux drew in a sharp breath, but before he could speak or rise to his feet Kylo was gone, taking the candle flames with him. Hux did stand, then, twisting to scan the room, coming around the table to put a wall solid at his back. He felt like a fool, for his fear now and his lack of it earlier, for thinking - what? That he knew what he was dealing with? That he was protected somehow? That this monster  _ liked _ him? 

_ Asking blunt questions about traumatic events is a good way to make sure he doesn’t _ , a small voice in Hux’s head pointed out, his reason creeping back. He pressed his palms against the cool surface of the wall, tipped his head back with a soft thud, and counted his breaths til they slowed. His question had not only been rude, it had been dreadful tactically and Hux ought to have known better. Kylo’s presence, after all this time, had gotten under his skin more than he had realised.

The abnormality of his evening seemed to hit him all at once, to render him still and speechless. He slid down to sit with his back against the wall, his knees drawn up. 

His ghost had a face, then, and a name. Takeaway preferences. Favourite flowers. Hux could still make them out where they sat on the table. Their colours were muted in the shadows but they were upright and alive, unspoiled. 

“I’m sorry,” he told the house. Told Kylo. 

 

*

Hux had a mad urge to call Maratelle back as he drove home, though it was really too late for her. It all felt too much to contain, to sort through quietly in his mind. Would he have told her, if it had been a reasonable hour? It wasn’t like there was anyone else to tell. Not his coworkers. Certainly not his father, who would probably try to have him sectioned. 

No, not even Maratelle, and not even because she would worry for his sanity, he thought as he brushed his teeth. In the mirror, his eyes were almost as darkly shadowed as Kylo’s. He felt oddly protective, possessive; he supposed Kylo was an achievement, of sorts, something he had discovered, that he was damned if he’d let anyone else take over, take the credit for. 

Kylo had come to him, not to Mitaka or Thanisson or that old bastard Peavey. And, he told himself, tossing his shirt onto the laundry pile, it was because his instincts had been right. He’d read Kylo correctly, built a rapport. This sort of thing was what made him better than the rest of them. Kylo did not truly mean him harm, he was sure of it - he’d had ample opportunity to prove otherwise. The tentative conversation and quiet company of the bulk of the evening was what he could trust, not the vestiges of superstition that had seen him panic like some horror movie side character about to be killed off. Kylo just had different methods of communication than the majority of his clients, fewer social niceties, after God knows how long of nothing but … haunting.

Hux was still buzzing with triumph as he lay stretched out in bed, with an exhilarated exhaustion that would nonetheless drag him down into sleep shortly.  _ Different methods of communication. _ He snorted to himself. That was one way of putting it. 

As he’d packed up his things and left the house he’d felt Kylo watch him. His sulks never lasted forever. Even when they were on purely antagonistic terms his moods had ebbed and flowed like anyone else’s. Hux could - well, make it up to him, strange as the concept still felt. Opening the front door Hux had paused, turned back into the house, in faint hope of seeing Kylo reappear, or even letters coalescing on the wall.  _ Apology accepted _ , perhaps, though Kylo would be unlikely to make things that simple. There was nothing but the gentle creaking of the floorboards, the soft, watchful noises that Hux knew so well. He left feeling, if not forgiven exactly, then at least not unwelcome to return.  

On the edge of sleep, Hux thought of the message on the landing, after the flowers had survived the night for the very first time. Now he knew it came from  _ Kylo _ , instead of from a disembodied presence he had almost considered a nemesis. 

Of course, the two were one and the same. The fact of Kylo changed nothing, but somehow changed everything. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I did intend this to just be a quick silly thing to put out in the weeks before the movie. I do have it planned out and remaining chapters half-written. I just got massively distracted with various other things, and then got The Fear about coming back to this and ugh. Forgive me. I love you. 
> 
> I'm on tumblr with the same username, and stuff about this 'verse can be found in the [fixerupperfic](http://irisparry.tumblr.com/tagged/fixerupperfic) tag.


End file.
